P G Wodehouse

SOME men fail to understand the importance of not being too earnest. "Are you going to go out with him again?" my ex-boyfriend asked me about my latest date. We have a Jerry and Elaine kind of relationship. "Gawd, no. He was too sincere," I said. "What do you mean?" he asked. "He was talking about the miracle of new babies," I said. "Ah," he said. "Too 'God's daisy chains.' " "Exactly," I said. "God's daisy chains" is a phrase used in a P.G.

For anyone interested in the politics of left and right -- and in political journalism as it is practiced at the highest level, Orwell's works are indispensable. This week, in the year that marks the 110th anniversary of his birth, we present a personal list of his five greatest essays. P.G. Wodehouse, the inspired British farceur and an utter political innocent, was caught behind enemy lines at his home in Le Touquet on the English Channel when the Germans swept across northern France in 1940.

P. G. Wodehouse is one of the few comedy writers to enjoy both widespread popularity and critical acclaim. As a master of the elegant nonsense story, his only rival is H. H. Munro, but Wodehouse is a gentler writer, who never treats his characters cruelly. Bertie Wooster may be an idle, overcivilized twit, but he remains an endearing twit, probably because he's so utterly helpless when left to his own devices.

Some people have left such an enduring mark on civilization that we shouldn't wait for jubilees or other milestones to honor their birthdays. Such is P.G. Wodehouse , that great British master of farce, born 132 years ago today. For me, Wodehouse is the antidote to every ill that can arise in life. On my Wodehouse shelf there isn't a volume that hasn't been reread a hundred times, thumbed nearly to dust. There are passages in every book and story that can still leap off the page and make me laugh out loud, never mind that I can recite them by heart. Most Americans probably know Wodehouse mostly from the TV adaptation "Jeeves and Wooster," drawn from his most famous series of novels and stories and starring Stephen Fry as the butler Jeeves and Hugh Laurie (later of "House)

"I believe there are only two ways of writing a novel," Pelham Grenville Wodehouse once said. "One is mine, making the thing a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right down deep into life, and not caring a damn." Never did an author describe his work so well.

September 14, 2004 | Robert McCrum, Robert McCrum, literary editor of the Observer in London, is the author of "Wodehouse: A Life," which will be published by Norton in November.

The complex relationship that F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner had with Hollywood has been described on many occasions. Less well known is what happened when P.G. Wodehouse, the English humorist and creator of Jeeves, worked for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the days of Irving Thalberg. From the first days of the "talkies," Wodehouse was always in the thick of the movie business. He was not alone in flirting with the studios. The talkies had triggered a new gold rush.

November 21, 2004 | Christopher Buckley, Christopher Buckley is the author of "Florence of Arabia" and "No Way to Treat a First Lady," winner of the 2004 Thurber Prize for American Humor.

"Mrs. GREGSON to see you, sir." Such were the first words uttered in print by the character who would go on to become one of literature's immortals. They appeared in the Saturday Evening Post of Sept. 18, 1916, in a story titled "Extricating Young Gussie." As Robert McCrum notes in his superb biography, "P.G. Wodehouse: A Life," "So Jeeves glides into fiction much as his creator liked to do in real life."

March 9, 2003 | Jacob Heilbrunn, Jacob Heilbrunn is an editorial writer for The Times.

Could a P.G. Wodehouse revival be more timely? Overlook Press, which is reissuing Wodehouse's comic novels, clearly has its finger on America's pulse. Wodehouse and his famous creations, Bertie Wooster and manservant Jeeves, have often been dismissed by critics as a relic of Edwardian England, but surely nothing could be more mistaken.

What: "Fore! The Best of Wodehouse on Golf" Author: P.G. Wodehouse Publisher: Mariner Press ($13) No one--not Jim Murray, not Dan Jenkins, not Herbert Warren Wind--wrote about golf with the reverence and irreverence of P.G. Wodehouse. The British writer, who died in 1975 at the age of 94, was best known for his stories about Jeeves, the perfect gentleman's gentleman, but golf was his passion.

If you're trying to evoke the alternative universe that is the prose of P.G. Wodehouse, there is perhaps no better place to start than the passage in which Bertie Wooster's schoolmate, Gussie Fink-Nottle, awards prizes to the eager scholars at Market Snodsbury Grammar School. It is, thinks Wodehouse biographer Robert McCrum, "one of the funniest 30 pages ever written." How to describe them? Well, the effects build slowly, so you'd really have to start from the beginning.

It's not Jeeves and Wooster, but BBC1 is hoping another classic comedy by P.G. Wodehouse will make for a just as successful television hit. In January, British television watchers will get to see "Blandings," starring Timothy Spall and "Absolutely Fabulous'" Jennifer Saunders. The series is based on Wodehouse's stories about Lord Emsworth, owner of Blandings castle, and his beloved pig, the Empress of Blandings. Lord Emsworth wants peace and quiet; the people around him often get in the way. Wodehouse published his first story set at Blandings castle in 1915, titled "Something Fresh" (alternately, "Something New")

If you're trying to evoke the alternative universe that is the prose of P.G. Wodehouse, there is perhaps no better place to start than the passage in which Bertie Wooster's schoolmate, Gussie Fink-Nottle, awards prizes to the eager scholars at Market Snodsbury Grammar School. It is, thinks Wodehouse biographer Robert McCrum, "one of the funniest 30 pages ever written." How to describe them? Well, the effects build slowly, so you'd really have to start from the beginning.

November 21, 2004 | Christopher Buckley, Christopher Buckley is the author of "Florence of Arabia" and "No Way to Treat a First Lady," winner of the 2004 Thurber Prize for American Humor.

"Mrs. GREGSON to see you, sir." Such were the first words uttered in print by the character who would go on to become one of literature's immortals. They appeared in the Saturday Evening Post of Sept. 18, 1916, in a story titled "Extricating Young Gussie." As Robert McCrum notes in his superb biography, "P.G. Wodehouse: A Life," "So Jeeves glides into fiction much as his creator liked to do in real life."

September 14, 2004 | Robert McCrum, Robert McCrum, literary editor of the Observer in London, is the author of "Wodehouse: A Life," which will be published by Norton in November.

The complex relationship that F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Faulkner had with Hollywood has been described on many occasions. Less well known is what happened when P.G. Wodehouse, the English humorist and creator of Jeeves, worked for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the days of Irving Thalberg. From the first days of the "talkies," Wodehouse was always in the thick of the movie business. He was not alone in flirting with the studios. The talkies had triggered a new gold rush.

March 9, 2003 | Jacob Heilbrunn, Jacob Heilbrunn is an editorial writer for The Times.

Could a P.G. Wodehouse revival be more timely? Overlook Press, which is reissuing Wodehouse's comic novels, clearly has its finger on America's pulse. Wodehouse and his famous creations, Bertie Wooster and manservant Jeeves, have often been dismissed by critics as a relic of Edwardian England, but surely nothing could be more mistaken.

SOME men fail to understand the importance of not being too earnest. "Are you going to go out with him again?" my ex-boyfriend asked me about my latest date. We have a Jerry and Elaine kind of relationship. "Gawd, no. He was too sincere," I said. "What do you mean?" he asked. "He was talking about the miracle of new babies," I said. "Ah," he said. "Too 'God's daisy chains.' " "Exactly," I said. "God's daisy chains" is a phrase used in a P.G.

Some people have left such an enduring mark on civilization that we shouldn't wait for jubilees or other milestones to honor their birthdays. Such is P.G. Wodehouse , that great British master of farce, born 132 years ago today. For me, Wodehouse is the antidote to every ill that can arise in life. On my Wodehouse shelf there isn't a volume that hasn't been reread a hundred times, thumbed nearly to dust. There are passages in every book and story that can still leap off the page and make me laugh out loud, never mind that I can recite them by heart. Most Americans probably know Wodehouse mostly from the TV adaptation "Jeeves and Wooster," drawn from his most famous series of novels and stories and starring Stephen Fry as the butler Jeeves and Hugh Laurie (later of "House)

What: "Fore! The Best of Wodehouse on Golf" Author: P.G. Wodehouse Publisher: Mariner Press ($13) No one--not Jim Murray, not Dan Jenkins, not Herbert Warren Wind--wrote about golf with the reverence and irreverence of P.G. Wodehouse. The British writer, who died in 1975 at the age of 94, was best known for his stories about Jeeves, the perfect gentleman's gentleman, but golf was his passion.

Bertie Wooster is once again getting people in trouble. His friend Augustus Fink-Nottle is in love but can't court his girl in his own name because when Bertie pinched a policeman's helmet and was brought up before the magistrate, Sir Watkyn Bassett, Bertie didn't dare use his own name and so used the name Fink-Nottle. Now Fink-Nottle's in love with Sir Watkyn's daughter Madeline and so must employ the name Bertram Wooster, since Bertie has spoiled his own.